


The Temporal Cure for Eternal Ailments

by Prose_By_Rose



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Relives His Memories, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Minor Wanda Maximoff/Vision, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Slow Burn, Superheroes Saving the World, temporary Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-16 19:56:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8115445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prose_By_Rose/pseuds/Prose_By_Rose
Summary: When a mission goes wrong for Steve and the ex-Avengers, Bucky is removed from cryo before HYDRA's codes have been nuetralized. Steve and Tony works with Bucky to try to remove HYDRA’s activation codes, but it will require Bucky to relive nine forgotten past memories via a virtual reality. Bucky doesn’t believe he can be a hero, and he’s unwilling to admit his feelings for Steve, but escalating dangers may force him to find out who he really is and what he really wants.
Sometimes it takes a brainwashed ex-HYDRA operative to save the world...





	1. Chapter 1

The room smells like rotten apples; sharp and acrid. It’s a familiar smell for Buck. As familiar as the smell of fast food french fries, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies or a cup of cappuccino are to other people really.

He first got used to the smell back in the 30s. It’s the same heavy odor that used to shroud the left side of his ma’s green porcelain kitchen sink, where a jar filled with apple chunks, water and thick honey sat on the side opposite the freshly washed dishes, resting on the sink’s drainboard grooves. The wide mouth of the glass jar would be covered by a thin, stretched dish towel. The jar would be left to sit for weeks, and each week the smell would get stronger, a thin film of cellulose forming within a few weeks on top of the strange concoction. The floating cellulose would thicken over time, until it was slimy and chunky and the same deep hue as a ripe orange.

The disgusting gooey cellulose, Bucky eventually learned, is called a mother of vinegar, and it's what would turn the mess of apple chunks from cider into vinegar.

This homemade apple vinegar cider, once strained and the mother of vinegar removed to be saved for the next batch, would later be boiled by his mother with more apples and sugar in a large pot that wouldn’t leave the stovetop all day, cooking it all down into a dark, sweet apple butter, or thrown in a deep saucepan with roasted chicken bones and parsley and garlic, to make a bone broth, good for keeping the frozen winter air from giving you the cough.

Later, after HYDRA wiped his memories, that smell no longer meant that in the coming months there would be freshly baked bread with thick apple butter, or his pa’s favorite parsnip soup made with bone broth, or even red onions, usually pickled in the vinegar to help them keep during the long winter months, to put atop peanut butter sandwiches.

No, instead it meant the presence of CH2(CH2CHO)2, also known in the medical and science communities as glutaraldehyde. Or Zola's Miracle as Pierce liked to call it. Zola’s Miracle, an oily liquid, combined with ethylene glycol and temperatures below -200 fahrenheit, was the secret to preserving tissue in cryo, and it smelled like rotting apples.

Today his ma ain’t fermenting a batch of red and green apples, and Pierce is no longer here to order Bucky be put back on ice. Instead, it isn’t Zola’s Miracle he smells, but just plain old glutaraldehyde, and it is T’Challa who is administering it.

Bucky sits on a medical exam table in T’Challa’s Wakandan fortress, the black foam on top the table comfortable and soft, nothing like HYDRA’s austere treatment tables which had been nothing more than huge slabs of chilly metal with vibranium and leather restraints. T'Challa’s lead medical officer, whose name is M’Koni, wheels the IV stand with the bag of pungent solution closer. The IV stand’s wheels give a short squeak as it comes to a stop and the IV solution bag swings slightly, like a small pendulum on a wall clock.

M’Koni furrows his brow as he pushes the needle of the IV into Bucky’s flesh hand, and Bucky feels the slight pressure of the needle entering his vein, then the burn of the glutaraldehyde. M’Koni slowly withdraws the needle and firmly inserts the tubing into the IV hub, locking it in place, then securing it with tape to Bucky’s hand.

Normally a pale yellow, the glutaraldehyde has been mixed with so many fixatives and additives, it’s practically colorless. The clear liquid flows from the IV bag through the drip chamber, snakes through the infusion tubing, and spills into Bucky’s veins, mixing with his blood, where it will slowly perfuse throughout his body. By then, if you split Bucky open with a knife, his blood would smell like rotten apples too.

“You sure about this?” Steve asks, coming over to where Bucky is, face serious.

“I can’t trust my own mind,” Bucky says with a humorless laugh, “So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going under is the best thing… for everybody.”

Bucky had run for two years, eluding HYDRA and the task forces of every goddamn nation HYDRA had pissed off and even Steve himself, all to keep from being locked away, whether in a 6x8 cell or frozen in the frucking cryo chamber.

But if he doesn’t go back into cryo… he might instead feel the crippling pain and blankness that settles over his mind once HYDRA’s activation codes have been spoken. As Peggy Carter once told him, “Pain is inevitable, all you can do is choose which you’ll live with. Think of it like the choice between a bullet in the leg or a mortar in the gut; every soldier knows it's better to take the bullet.”

T’Challa silently joins them, doing one final check, lightly grasping the IV bag to watch the slowly draining liquid.

“An aldehyde to prevent brain synapses and nerve ending degradation in the cryo process,” T’Challa says, “Interesting.”

T'Challa lets the IV solution bag go, and turns to look at Bucky. “Zola’s scientists did not note the anesthesia used with it. I have taken the liberty of obtaining SHIELD’s old records on what would be strong enough to work on Captain Rogers, your serum should be similar enough.”

“There weren’t any notes because HYDRA never used anesthesia,” Bucky says.

T’Challa nods. “Cruelty, HYDRA’s signature calling card. I have seen too much of what HYDRA is capable of. Wakanda may have evaded HYDRA’s long reach thanks to the previous Black Panther, but other nations were not so lucky. I have seen HYDRA’s savagery firsthand from our neighbors to the east.”

“Narobia,” Steve says, “I remember that.”

Bucky can vaguely remember hearing about Narobia. It was after his escape from HYDRA, less than six months since the confrontation with Steve on the helicarrier. He had been in Caracas, wracked with fever and hallucinations for months thanks to withdraws from HYDRA’s many benzodiazepines, lingering in a tiny _cafetería_ that had seen better days.

He had been fiddling with a stolen phone, pulling up digital maps of the local area, trying to decide whether to take a train or steal a car to get to the next town, a baseball cap pulled low over his face to protect his identity in case someone might be looking for him even here.

At hearing the word “HYDRA” he had looked up sharply, heart pounding, to see the grainy image of a reporter on an old TV mounted on the concrete wall.

“As the Avengers move to liberate Narobia,” the TV had said, “questions arise as to just how long HYDRA has secretly been controlling the puppet government. Narobia has long been suspected of violating basic human rights, with rumors of ethnic cleansings since the late 1990s, but recent leaked images of human experiments, police brutality and executions of political prisoners has shocked the UN, who has long publically condemned Narobia for its suspected mistreatment of ethnic minorities, but had yet to threaten Narobia with military action. But with confirmation of the presence of HYDRA at the highest level of the government, the Avengers will now attempt to do what the UN has failed to accomplish, set the Narobian people free.”

For a moment, Bucky had forgotten he was in Venezuela drinking coffee. Instead he could swear he could taste the dust and smoke from the aftermath of a recent bombing, hear someone shouting “The targets have left the west perimeter, move out!” and the whir of a nearby helicopter. He could hear a woman crying hysterically in the distance.

And then in the next second it vanished, just another hallucination, and Bucky had set the porcelain coffee cup down with shaking hands.

At the time, Narobia had meant little to him, and its neighboring nation Wakanda even less. But now here he is seeking asylum in none other than Wakanda itself.

T’Challa had been waiting for them after the battle with Tony Stark. Steve and Bucky had stumbled back onto their stolen quinjet only to find Zemo slumped in the rear seat, unconscious and in cuffs, the red and blue lights from the front controls reflecting off his pale face. T’Challa was in the pilot’s seat, watching them with a careful stillness, his dark skin almost melting into the shadows. Bucky, who was only able to walk upright because he had an arm slung around Steve’s shoulders, could feel Steve’s tense all along his side.

“Ross you may easily hide from, Tony Stark is a different matter,” T'Challa had said in grave tones, “Satellite scans, facial recognition, patrolling Iron Legion drones, you cannot hide from him forever, unless you go somewhere he will not think to look. I have taken the liberty of programming a flight path into your quinjet’s navigation computer, I suggest you take it. I cannot offer much, but… some measure of safety, a sanctuary if you will.”

“I… thank you,” Steve said. Bucky hated to interrupt the moment with bad news, but...

“I need a different kind of sanctuary,” Bucky said. Because he had known what he had needed to do since Zemo had first started to speak those words, “The chambers inside, for the Winter Soldiers. No one can activate me from there, it’s the only way to keep me from… well, you’ve seen what I can do.”

“Bucky…” Steve said, but didn’t finish. Bucky knew Steve was staring at him, but he couldn’t look at Steve, instead keeping eye contact with T’Challa. Bucky then felt the stiff line of Steve’s shoulders go limp, his shoulders sagging in defeat, like Steve too would be locked away in the icy coffin with Bucky.

T’Challa looked at Bucky, perhaps remembering the five soldiers covered in ice, as still as statues, each with a small red weeping hole in the center of their foreheads. “HYDRA’s most elite death squad,” Bucky had said, “They can take a whole country down in one night, you’d never see them coming.”

And yet in cryo, all it had taken was a single man with a gun and careful aim. One, two, three, four and the final shot… the deadliest army on Earth reduced to a pile of corpses. T’Challa understood the chance Bucky was taking with his own life if he went back in cryo. T’Challa had slowly nodded, his face a mixture of understanding and respect.

Bucky pulls himself from the memory, back to the present where Steve and T’Challa are speaking in low tones, discussing the cryo preparation. Steve turns to Bucky.

“I’m mounting a rescue mission for Sam and the others, you’re welcome to join,” Steve says, with a sideways glance at the cryo chamber, “You can put this off a few more days.”

“I’m sorry your friends got in trouble because of me,” Bucky says, regretful that helping Bucky seems to cost Steve more and more, but still shakes his head ‘no’, “Too dangerous, if someone activated the codes…”

“I’ve stopped you twice,” Steve says, “I’ll do it again.”

“You mean you got your ass kicked twice,” Bucky says, “I’m not a hero, Steve. I’m not Buck Rogers, flying about on an inertron floater, popping bad guys with my disintegrator pistol, saving the world, that’s you. I’m Captain Laska, Killer Kane’s best weapon against Buck Rogers…”

“Those were just comics from when we were kids,” Steve says, face stubborn.

“I was made to destroy you. To destroy anyone strong enough to oppose HYDRA. I’m a weapon,” Bucky says. Steve reaches out to grasp one of Bucky’s shoulders in a firm grip.

“I’ll find a way to get those codes out of your head, Buck, I promise,” Steve says.

Bucky wonders how long it will take, how many years he’ll be in cryo. 5 years, 20 years, maybe 70? Will Steve have grey hair by then, laugh lines around his mouth, long retired from the field and spending his days quietly painting? Or will he be Director Rogers of a new SHIELD, with a feisty wife named Sharon Rogers and a son who wants to grow up to be as fierce and heroic as his dad? Or will Steve have died again, his name back on a memorial in Arlington?

“Buck, you okay?” Steve asks, and Bucky realizes he’s been staring, trying to memorize Steve’s face as it looks in this moment. Steve’s youthful face, with familiar vivid blue eyes, strong jaw, his pink full lips… Bucky takes a shaky breath.

Bucky is too aware of what little time there is left. He barely manages to restrain himself from counting down the remaining seconds. He hasn’t felt this out of time since he shipped out for the European theatre in 1943.

The old Penn Station had been packed that fateful day in ‘43, full of soldiers and their families who had come to tearfully say goodbye. Bucky had said his first goodbyes in the cavernous waiting room, his whole family there, standing next to a USO booth dwarfed by giant photomurals of soldiers on the station’s walls.

There had been hugs and back slaps and a “take care of yourself,” and his auntie had even kissed him on the cheek. Then it was just Steve, Bucky's parents and youngest sister left waiting in the main concourse with him. They stood in a small cluster around Bucky, trying to say goodbye, pressed in tight by the noisy sea of strangers around them.

His youngest sister, Mae, was too young to understand what was going on. She clung to her mother’s hand with one arm and was bending down, pressing the chubby fingers of her free hand against one of the glass bricks in the station’s floor, fascinated by it.

As for Bucky’s ma, he had yet to see her cry, but her pin curls, normally immaculate, were threatening to fall out of her hair pins and her smile was strained on her pale face. Bucky’s father, his left leg standing stiffly due to the metal and leather leg brace hidden under his wide legged suit trousers, had a comforting hand on Steve’s shoulder. Both of them were 4F.

Bucky could see out of the corner of his eye one of the station’s enormous suspended clocks, nearly as tall as one of the locomotives themselves, hanging from the glass and iron vaulted ceiling. The clock was silently counting down the minutes left with the slow turn of the minute hand. Bucky willed time to slow down.

Less than five minutes till boarding.

Bucky’s mother stepped forward, tightly embracing him, her face resting on his shoulder. He felt his mother press a small black and white photograph into his hand. It was a family photo from the Christmas before, the Barnes family with wide laughing faces sitting on chairs set in front of the Christmas tree.

Even Steve is in it, content for the day to pretend he was a Barnes, seated in the front row as he’s even shorter than Bucky’s oldest sister, know-it-all Addie. Bernard, who is Addie’s husband, is attempting to keep the family dog from wriggling out of the photo, and so has a lapful of energetic Jack Russell named Tonto trying to lick his face.

Little Mae’s practically still just a baby, wrapped up tight in Buck’s arms. The Christmas tree, small enough it had to be set on the large sewing table to be seen behind all of them, adds a festive look, bright tinsel and ornament balls and spun fiberglass Angel-Hair.

Bucky turned the photo over to see that everyone had written a short goodbye on the back. Someone had even pretended to write for Tonto, a short “I wuff miss you!” Bucky laughed as he realized that Steve, who is always too serious, had written “Good luck, soldier,” like he was Bucky’s CO or something instead of Bucky’s best friend.

And then beneath that Steve had written the lyrics “A stór mo chroí, when you're far away, from the home that you’ll soon be leaving,” a nod to the song Steve's mother always used to sing. Since Sarah Rogers was no longer here to sing it, well, this would have to do.

Now it is 70 years later, and Steve and Bucky are saying goodbye again.

Bucky stands in the cryo chamber, Steve watching him. Goodbye Steve, Bucky thinks. The machine hisses as it’s turned on, air blowing down and brushing his face. The air leaves behind a heavy chemical odor that has a hint of citrus to it. It smells like someone futilely tried to mask the smell of gun cleaning solvent with a lemon-scented air freshener. He realizes it's the scent of the anesthesia T'Challa made for him.

He’s cold, the temperature dropping rapidly, the knuckles in his hands aching from the bone-deep chill. Before the ice can begin to form, everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Narobia is a fictional African nation from the Marvel comics. I changed a whole lot of things about it by placing it next to Wakanda and making it the location of a past HYDRA vs. Avengers fight. But considering some characters in MCU bear little resemblence to the comic book characters they are based on, especially Zemo, I figure I can make whatever changes I need to for the story.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

**5 Months Later**

Steve watches a small group of children playing in the crowded street. The children are all very young and standing in a circle, hand in hand, slowly skipping clockwise while they sing, “Ukuti, ukuti, wa mnazi, wa mnazi…”

It reminds Steve of ring-around-the-rosie. One of the boys, in a blue and red striped shirt, is so short that to hold hands with the older boy and girl on either side of him he has to hold his tiny arms nearly vertical. There is a look of serious concentration on his young face. It’s adorable. Steve notices the older girl must think so too, because her smile is bright as she looks at her young companion, both her pink floral dress and her hair, which are cornrows pulled into pigtails, billow in the wind.

The children's song and laughter is nearly drowned out by the sheer noise of the crowd around them. They are playing in a busy marketplace buzzing with life.

The street itself is filled with people in large masses walking in every direction, a few old vans trying to push a path into the crowd and honking incessantly. There are no lanes, no stoplights, with some tents set up in the middle of the street to serve as temporary stalls. This city is just a stone’s throw from Wakanda, but couldn’t be more different. There are no tall buildings here, unlike Wakanda’s futuristic skyscrapers built seamlessly into a jungle, but this city does have its own sort of chaos, a liveliness that is energizing.

Steve takes a moment to take it all in. The woman in a second-floor shop hanging brightly colored dresses on the railing of her balcony, probably in hopes of luring in customers. The row of open-air shops selling food, each built like a lean-to with three wooden walls and a roof. Inside are bags of baked bread piled into wide but shallow metal bins, and stocked in the back on wooden shelves are cans of coffee, canned vegetables, juice. There are large sealed bags of flour and sugar, no brand name on them.

In the stall across from Steve, a bored shopkeeper sits with his elbow resting on the counter next to rows of shirts still in their plastic wrapping, waiting for some new customers.

“Ukipata upepo, watete... watete…” the children sing louder, spinning faster and faster until they are running still holding hands, around and around in a circle. The crowd parts around them to give them space. “Watetemeka!” the children shriek, and fall down, sprawling on the street laughing and giggling, the circle broken and the game ready to begin again.

The children reminds him of Brooklyn, back when the streets were filled with playing children not cars. Bucky’s younger sisters used to play games like this. He can still remember watching the other kids from his bedroom window when he was too sick to play with them. In summer when he had the window open he could hear groups of girls chanting while skipping rope, “Charlie Chaplin went to France, To teach the ladies how to dance, First the heel, then the toe, Then the splits, and around you go!” while he listlessly penciled sketches into his notebook.

Bucky used to stop by whenever Steve was sick, sometimes with comics to read while Steve continued sketching, or other times with a deck of cards so they could play Rummy or German Whist, even though every time Steve won, he’d crow about it incessantly. When Steve’s bragging got to be enough, Bucky would gather up the cards to reshuffle like he _knew_ this time he would win, and Steve would try to wrestle the cards from him. Bucky would hold the deck out of reach. But Steve knew Bucky was ticklish, and he’d go for Bucky’s sides, feet, the back of his neck with wiggling fingers and Bucky would start laughing… Steve shakes himself from the memory.

Now’s not the time to get lost in the past.

“ETA?” Steve asks, still watching the marketplace. He's standing on the steps leading up to the front door of a liquor store that doesn’t open for another couple hours.

“Clint and Scott should be here any minute,” Natasha says. She’s standing next to him, resting against a hand-painted white wooden sign that lists the beer brands and home-brewed spirits the small shop sells. The steps they are standing on are painted a bright blue, but heavy foot traffic over the years have rubbed away the paint, leaving the light grey of the concrete beneath peeking through here and there.

Steve is dressed casual, jeans and a red long-sleeved tee, his uniform hidden underneath. He has a baseball cap and sunglasses on, as does Natasha and Wanda. It does little to hide them. Few tourists bother visiting the Gibar suburb, home to the workers of the ore mines to the west of Narobia’s capital. But other than a few curious stares no one seems to be paying them much attention.

Steve can see Wanda sitting in the Jeep, the shade from the Jeep roof and the wind providing at least a little relief from the heat. Sam left a few minutes ago to scout out the stalls around them.

A couple of motorcycles come roaring through the streets, parting a path through the crowd. It’s Clint, in a white dress shirt and jeans, and Scott, his Ant-Man suit redesigned to look like an all-black motorcycle suit.

“How’s the kids?” Natasha asks them while Clint and Scott park their motorcycles. Both had left to visit their families in the lull between missions.

The rest of the group had returned to Wakanda. Natasha spent the time sparring with T’Challa and sometimes disappearing God knows where, while Wanda and Sam explored the nearby Wakandan capital of Birnin Zana, and Steve would stand alone watching over Bucky.

Steve can’t help but notice Bucky has become so pale over the past few months, ice crystals forming on his lashes and lips. With his blood frozen in his veins and no longer circulating, the blush has faded from his cheeks. And he’s so still. Like Steve’s mom after she died. It's not right, but it makes leaving for a mission a relief, a chance to stop staring at Bucky trying to remind himself Bucky isn’t actually dead.

Clint responds to Natasha’s question first.

“Nathan’s turning out to be quite the climber. I swear every time I turn around he’s climbed back onto the back of the sofa, not sure the usual baby gate is going to be enough,” Clint says proudly, “And I’ve got more drawings for you from Lila! Cooper says ‘hi’ and to go kick some bad guy ass for him… and not to tell his mom he said ass."

“Peanut is happy as a clam,” Scott says, helmet now off and held under one arm, “Maggie… um… maybe not so happy I’m a wanted criminal again. Said something about me never changing or something. Steve’s doing great though.”

“Steve?” Clint asks with a frown, “I thought Maggie married Jim-what’s-his-name?”

“Oh no, I meant Steve, my daughter’s pet giant ant,” Scott tells Clint, “She’s a hugggeee fan of yours, Cap.”

“Giant… ant…” Steve says. Steve looks over at Clint to see if he has any idea what Scott is talking about, but Clint just shrugs like “don’t look at me”.

“Don’t tell anyone, the neighbors think it's just some type of really weird dog,” Scott stage whispers. “Also, Pym nearly strangled me alive when I asked him to redesign the suit to be less… conspicuous. But hey, it looks great, right?”

Clint gives Scott a thumbs up. “And Laura?” Natasha asks.

“Wants her and the kids to join me,” Clint says, “Says she’d rather be with me than hide in safety now that I can’t visit home for any length of time. I just can’t risk accidentally tipping off one of Ross’s scouts; had a near encounter with one of them at O’Hare. But I don’t know, this is no life for a kid. They should stay in school, I’ll find ways to visit.”

“Hey, we’ll figure it out, we’ll get you back with Laura and the kids,” Natasha says, giving Clint a side hug. Steve shouldn’t have dragged Clint into this mess, he should have found another way to rescue Wanda. If he could go back and change things...

Sam, who is returning from his perusal of the nearby stalls, comes to stand on Steve’s other side and holds out a magazine with a shake of his head.

“Looks like we finally got a name,” Sam says. Steve glances at it. Its an issue of Newsweek, complete with a closeup of Steve’s face and a bold headline.

“The Ultimates: Unsung Heroes or Dangerous Vigilantes?” Steve reads out loud.

“The press named us The Ultimates??” Scott says.

“Always wanted to be ultimate,” Clint says to himself.

“But I told my daughter I’m an Avenger now! She thought that was so cool,” Scott says, “Can’t we just be Avengers still? Or if that will get confusing, we can just be The Cooler Avengers? Avengers: The Next Generation?”

“We agreed, no contact with the press, so whatever they decide to name us, as long as we feel it isn’t offensive, we go with it,” Steve says.

“Not exactly how I wanted to get featured in Newsweek,” Sam says.

“I’m used to it,” Scott says with a sigh. Sam looks at Scott like “really?”

“Hey Clint, got your stuff,” Wanda says, coming over from the jeep and handing Clint what looks like a guitar case. But it's not a guitar inside, but his bow and arrows, neatly packed away and hidden from prying eyes.

“Yes!” Clint says.

“Any news from Bluewing or Redwing?” Sam asks.

“Not yet... wait, I got something,” Wanda says, watching a tablet specially designed by T’Challa to allow other members of the group to use and control Falcon’s drones. “They’ve hit the outskirts, we've got about an hour till they’re in the valley. If we want to set up that ambush, we need to do it now.”

“Ambush?” Scott asks.

“Clint! You didn’t brief him on the flight over?” Natasha says.

“I was teaching him how to play Crashlands!” Clint says.

“Look, you heard about Lagos, when we were fighting Crossbones?” Sam says.

“Yeah, that was when… uh…” Scott says, then cuts off awkwardly looking at Wanda.

“Crossbones had a team, they called themselves the Death Squad, catchy I know. No one knows who he and the team were working for, we never found out,” Sam says, “They caused lots of problems—selling weapons to terrorists, attacking local police and civilians, you name it.”

“In Lagos they were after a biological weapon at the Institute of Infectious Diseases,” Sam continues, “We had hoped with Crossbones dead, the team would disband, but it looks like someone new is in charge and they are back. This time to purchase something, we’re not sure what, all our contact knows is this isn’t the first purchasing arrangement they’ve made with whoever the dealers are.”

“We stop the Death Squad before they even make it to the meeting, take them into custody,” Steve says, “But we need to know what they’ve been buying and who's selling it. So we’ll pretend to be the Death Squad ourselves, meet with the dealers, arrest them too.”

“Always wanted to go undercover as an internationally wanted terrorist in the Death Squad,” Scott says, “... oh, wait. No I don’t.”

“Time to head out,” Natasha says, “The Death Squad will have to pass through the mines to get to their dealer’s location, that’s where we strike.”

Before long the Jeep and two motorcycles are rumbling down a dirt path, headed out of the suburb and into mining territory. Steve watches the landscape from the passenger seat of the open-air Jeep, one arm resting on the half door and the wind whipping through his hair.

Natasha’s driving, so they are flying down the road at breakneck speed while she steers with one hand. Sam and Wanda are in the back seats covered in dust from the road, the new drone named Bluewing resting on the Jeep floor near Wanda’s feet. Redwing has been put back in its compartment in Sam’s EXO-7 Falcon jetpack in the trunk.

Steve watches the landscape that stretches out into the distance, rocks and tan soil with tuffs of scraggly grass and bushes dotting the unforgiving land. When the Avengers fought HYDRA in Narobia before, he didn’t have the chance to see this valley.

It reminds Steve of the desert washes he saw in Colorado, a few weeks after the battle of New York when Director Fury put Steve on mandatory leave. “Get out of here, go see some damn sights, Captain,” Nick Fury had growled, “Hitting that damn punching bag isn’t helping anybody. I’m tired of seeing your sorry face. Go enjoy yourself for a change.”

Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, Hawaii… he had seen it all. And somewhere between the quiet tranquility of the starry nights, the breathtaking beauty, the relief to be just another face in the crowd of tourists, just another person, he had begun to heal from his grief. Now he can still see that beauty here in the Great Rift Valley in Narobia. Every once in awhile the sea of tan rocks and small green bushes is broken by the yawning chasm of an open-pit mine.

As they pass by one, Steve looks at the mine, an enormous valley with terraced walls. Down down down the mine goes, cut into dark grey rock, a sharp contrast to the light colored soil at the surface. At the bottom of the mine are patches of dirt and mud and several large ponds of dirty stagnant water. The large size of these mines is staggering.

“It’s mostly flat valley,” Natasha yells over the noise of the road and the engine, “But the road veers towards the valley walls a couple miles ahead. Old gold mine cut into the side of the cliffs up there, no longer in use, but the road drives right by it.”

It’s obvious when they get to the valley walls. The road begins to incline, up into the cliffs. Natasha has to slow way down, the unpaved road causing the Jeep to lurch and sway every step of the way, the gravel crunching beneath the wheels. Clint’s and Scott’s motorcycles slowly follow behind them.

“They’ll have to pass through here,” Natasha says, “No pavement, no guardrail, frequent turns and a steep cliff, means no vehicle can go over 30, easier for us to stop them.”

“Looks like the perfect spot,” Steve says, glancing back to watch Scott and Clint struggle to drive over the tough terrain.

When they arrive near the abandoned mine, Natasha directs everyone to hide the Jeep and motorcycles behind the shuttered miner’s office, which is more a small wooden shelter than a proper building.

Clint strips to get into uniform in full view of everyone, unashamed, while Wanda goes into the abandoned office with her costume in hand. Natasha and Steve have their uniforms on under their clothes, and start removing the outer layers of clothing while checking their weapons and gear. Scott helps Sam start strapping on the Falcon.

“Uh… is that a new uniform?” Scott says, doing a double take, looking at Steve and forgetting his current task of helping Sam with his jetpack. Sam takes the Falcon buckle out of Scott’s hand with a jerk and starts strapping himself in, shaking his head. Everyone else is staring at Steve.

“...Yeah,” Steve says, “Not Captain America anymore, couldn’t keep wearing the old uniform. T’Challa, he made this for me. Less flashy, more stealth. More… functional…”

That’s what T’Challa had said. When Steve explained he had given up the shield and the title of Captain America, T’Challa had offered to replace both the shield and the uniform.

“The shield is more important, it can determine life or death,” T’Challa said, “I will build you a shield first; you may have to do the first few missions in your old uniform.”

Then T’Challa had said disapprovingly, “Your uniform, it is too bulky to hide under clothes, it should be like Natasha’s or mine, slim enough it can be hidden when you need to blend in. And no excess or baggy cloth, you should not risk catching the fabric on anything while fighting; it should be like a second skin. The pants especially will need to be tighter, it is too loose. There is a reason Natasha and I dress the way we do. The others, their fighting styles are not as acrobatic as ours, and do not run the same risk of clothes catching on anything. I will fix it for you.” Steve remembered T’Challa’s uniform, the way it stretched tight whenever T'Challa crouched like a cat, hugging every muscle.

T’Challa kept good on his word. And yes, the new uniform was slim, easy to hide under clothes when he was undercover, a dark navy color that blended into the night when it needed to, but it clung to Steve’s powerful muscles in an embarrassing way. It’s made of Kevlar-based ballistic nylon, no padding or additional armor just a utility belt to go with it, so it hides absolutely nothing.

Sure, the old uniform was skin-tight in places too, but not all over, not like this. This new uniform really was like a second skin. No stars or stripes decorating it since he promised Tony he wouldn’t be Captain America.

Natasha looks at him with a raised eyebrow. “Looking good. Has Sharon seen it yet?” she says with a smirk. Embarrassed, Steve ducks his head.

“Not yet,” Steve says. He hasn’t really had the time to see Sharon. He’s been too worried about Bucky, too upset they don’t have some sort of solution for HYDRA’s codes yet. He had thought the manual Zemo had used would have had something, but all it contained was how to store and activate the Winter Soldier, not any clues on how to free Bucky’s mind.

To distract himself from the stares and his worry for Bucky, Steve checks his new shield. He removes a small white metal disc that’s barely large enough for the handle on its back from the pocket of his discarded jeans. He holds the disc by its handle and presses a button on the back that’s right against his hand.

The rim of the disc emits several short and thin red beams that widen and widen… till with a loud zap they merge into an energy shield. The energy shield looks solid, same shape and size as his old vibranium shield, completely opaque, and if you hit it with your hand, it would be as strong and durable as the vibranium. The only giveaway it’s made of energy not metal is the crackling sound it makes when it comes into contact with solid objects.

“A gold mine nearby, huh?” Scott says now that he’s over the shock of Steve’s new uniform. “I know what gold does to men's souls,” Scott drawls in Walter Huston’s deep voice.

“Got that reference!” Steve says.

Whether or not Steve knows a movie reference has long since become an ongoing game. So far Clint has managed to stump Steve the most, using references from B-Movie cult monster movies and campy sci-fi films.

This particular quote he knows from right after he had woken up from the ice and SHIELD was teaching him everything they thought he needed to know about the future, keeping him in isolation from the general population. During the lonely nights he watched all the Humphrey Bogart films he missed trying not to remember how much Bucky had loved The Maltese Falcon, quoting it every chance he got. Steve had to convince himself this was real, he was in the future, this wasn’t just a bad dream. That Dum-Dum and Howard and Peggy and Bucky were gone...

“I don’t,” Clint says, “Wait, Steve got a movie reference I didn’t??”

“You need to watch better films,” Steve says smugly.

“Believe it or not, at least here, it’s not the gold that was valuable,” Sam says to Scott, “It was the by-products of the gold mining, the other stuff pulled out of the rocks with it. Worth a lot more money than the gold itself.”

“Hmm, gold, heavy metals sometimes occur in groups so it's another heavy metal, more valuable than gold, in the rift valley…” Scott mutters to himself, “...uh, palladium? Rhodium! No? Um, platinum?”

“Bingo,” Sam says, “platinum. A lot of gold and platinum in the mines in this area, makes Narobia a lot of money.” Scott looks in the direction of the mine with interest.

“We’ve got 10 minutes!” Wanda warns.

As predicted, about 10 minutes later a couple of black SUVs drive up the road. Steve watches from the gloomy darkness inside the miner’s office, among the cobwebs and rotting wood, the drapes just very slightly parted so he can see out without anyone outside seeing in. Natasha and Scott are standing near him, too difficult to see in the darkness but he can hear them breathing and can sense their presence.

“Okay…” Natasha whispers into her comm to Clint, who is hiding on the roof of the office, “Now!”

An arrow hits the front tire of the first SUV, embedding itself in the now rapidly deflating wheel. Two more arrows, another in a rear tire of the same SUV and one in the tires of the second.

Both vehicles go skidding, the drivers fighting for control. The second vehicle slams into the SUV in front of it. The front vehicle spins out of control from the force, turning perpendicular to the road. The rear of the second vehicle fishtails, rapidly heading towards the edge of the cliff. The front vehicle continues its momentum on a collision course with the miner’s cabin and begins to roll.

Suddenly, both vehicles freeze.

The second vehicle's right rear fender and wheel are hanging over the cliff and tilted down, the front of the vehicle slightly raised towards the sky. The first vehicle is frozen in the beginning of a roll, the vehicle tilted dangerously, only one tire touching the ground. Wanda stands in the middle of the road, hands dancing, a red haze around her as she keeps the SUVs frozen. Sam is next to her, his EXO-7 Falcon wings deployed and glinting in the bright sun.

The SUV doors slam open and seven gunmen struggle out of the suspended vehicles ready for a fight. The gunmen raise their weapons. The gunfire begins, and Sam’s wings fold into a triangle creating a bulletproof shield while he stands in front of Wanda, protecting them both from the bullets. Steve and Natasha burst from the miner’s office, Steve with his shield raised and Natasha with her glowing electroshock batons in hand.

Steve throws his shield. The shield makes an electric crackling sound as it hits one of the gunmen, sending him flying into the SUV behind him. The shield bounces from him to the side of the other SUV, leaving a sizable dent, and back into Steve’s hands. An arrow from Clint takes out one of the gunmen. Another yells when he feels the hard sting of Natasha’s baton, then he slumps to the ground unconscious.

Two of the gunmen break off from the group, running for the mine.

“I’ve got them!” Steve yells into his comm, and takes off after them.

Steve chases them down a dirt path, and up ahead the entrance of the underground gold mine looms. The entrance to the mine is a rough square hole in the grey rock. Beyond the entrance is total darkness.

The two Death Squad gunmen run into the mine. Steve follows, shield up and ready for a fight. In the darkness, he can hear the footsteps of the two men still running.

Steve’s red shield quietly hums, casting a red glow in the dark cavern, and Steve looks around. The mine is an arched tunnel reinforced with a metal frame, horizontal wood planks lining the wall. There are old rickety pipes along the east wall that disappear into the darkness ahead.

Steve retrieves a pair of vision goggles Tony gave him to see in the dark from his utility belt. Steve fits them on over his head, watches the thermal imaging screen for a second, then turns the power off to his energy shield. The shield dissipates with a quiet snick leaving only the white vibranium handle in Steve’s hand.

Steve creeps down the mine shaft, listening for the two gunmen. He can see their two heat signatures behind the west wall. There’s an opening in the wall ahead. He makes sure his shield handle is in his hand and ready.

He turns the corner and cautiously moves into the room. He’s in a cave, the ceiling very low, and Steve has to stoop to fit in the cave.

The cave floor is nothing more than thick gooey mud and roughly hewn rock walls. There’s a grey safety net right under the ceiling, once there to prevent loose rock from falling on miners, as well as a part of a rusted and broken pneumatic rock drill discarded on the cave floor. Old yellow spray paint decorates the walls, a remnant of how the miners used to mark where to drill.

The two gunmen are here, guns raised.

BAM! BAM! ZAP!

The gunmen fire, but Steve activates his shield and the bullets deflect harmlessly off his energy shield. A gunman pulls out a grenade. A suicidal move, it’ll bring the cave down on all of them, Steve included.

Damn, Steve thinks, I should have seen that coming.

Steve throws his shield best he can before the gunman can do something stupid, like pull the pin out of the grenade. His awkward hunched position due to the low ceiling means he can’t throw it as hard as normal, but it's still enough force to knock the gunman off his feet in time and the grenade to go flying into the mud.

The second gunman and Steve both go scrambling for the grenade, fighting to move fast despite the deep slippery mud. Steve plows into the second gunman, both of them grappling.

It's hard to move around in such tight quarters. Steve locks an arm around the gunmen’s throat, but when Steve starts walking backward with the restrained gunman in tow, he suddenly feels a wood beam and empty air beneath the back half of one of his feet.

Surprised, Steve looks down to see that his heel is resting on the edge of a large square hole in the cave floor. It looks like it’s an ore pass down to the next floor of the mine.

The gunman takes the moment to swipe a knife at Steve’s belly, but Steve sees it just in time and staggers back out of the knife’s reach, forced to let go of the him.

The gunman goes straight for the grenade nearby, Steve hot on his heels. The gunmen gets a glock out of its holster, and aims back at Steve. Steve moves his shield up in front of his face, and the bullet pings off the shield. When Steve lowers his energy shield, the grenade is in the gunman’s hands.

Shit.

The gunman pulls the pin out of the grenade. Steve lunges for him, and with a brutal elbow to the face smashes the gunman’s nose and grabs the grenade from him, lobbying it into the ore pass.

Steve makes for the cave exit, using the safety net above him to pull himself up every time the deep mud begins to suck at his boots slowing him down. As the explosion begins to rock the cave, Steve is nearly out, so he ducks and rolls out of the cave room. He can hear the cave ceiling begin to collapse in the room behind him.

Here in the main mine shaft the floor rocks and the walls shake, but the reinforced tunnel stays intact. After the dust settles, Steve lingers long enough to see the cave room behind him had completely collapsed. No way the two gunmen survived.

Steve emerges from the mine dirty and covered in mud. Apparently things went better out here. His team has the rest of the Death Squad in handcuffs. Sam whistles when he sees Steve.

“You look like you fell down a well, Timmy,” Sam says.

“What?” Steve says.

“Another reference Steve didn’t get! Point to Sam,” Clint says.

“Had a grenade explode in the mine. They wanted to take me out even if that meant dying too,” Steve says.

“Damn, you sure Rumlow is dead? That was his signature move,” Sam says. Steve shakes his head.

“He is, I saw the body,” Steve says.

After the fire at Lagos had been put out and Steve was helping as many survivors from the building as he could, he saw two people carrying Brock Rumlow’s dead burned body over to join the other casualties laid out in front of the building. The row of dead bodies was at least a dozen and a half, all of them but Crossbones were civilians, and the evacuation was far from over. Wanda was there helping put blankets over the faces of the dead out of respect, silent tears on her face.

“Sounds more like whoever the Death Squad is working for is the one who wants Captain America dead at all costs, and in Lagos Rumlow was just following orders,” Natasha says.

“Didn’t anyone tell them Steve’s not Captain America anymore?” Clint says.

“You’ll always be Captain America in my heart,” Scott says. He reaches over to give Steve a comforting pat on the shoulder, but notices all the mud on Steve’s uniform and makes a “maybe not” face instead.

“So, what we find?” Steve asks. Wanda opens a black briefcase filled with money, a LOT of money.

“Got a pretty good idea what they’re buying, this region and this much cash,” Clint says.

“Black market platinum?” Scott hazards.

“Not just any platinum,” Sam says, “Guess what’s so special about these mines.”

“They’re right against the Wakanda border, near the vibranium mines in Wakanda’s Bashenga Mountains,” Steve says grimly.

“May not be pure vibranium anywhere but Wakanda, but there’s trace amounts in the gold and platinum here,” Sam says, “Not enough to get more than a tiny amount, but if you leave it in the gold and platinum… well, vibranium can change the very properties of a metal, even in microscopic amounts.”

“Well… we better find out who’s been selling it to the Death Squad,” Natasha says. She knocks the nearest handcuffed gunmen unconscious and starts stripping him of his uniform and gear.

“Time to dress the part, boys,” Natasha says, holding the Death Squad uniform out towards Scott. Scott takes it with obvious trepidation.

“Come on, Scott,” Clint says, “What could possibly go wrong?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated!


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